


There's Just Nothing Better

by oneyesterday



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Although that's not important, Beards are the best, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Everybody Lives, Humor, Romance, tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-03-31 20:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3991861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneyesterday/pseuds/oneyesterday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kili," Bilbo breathes, even as Kili shakes his head frantically and makes the universal shushing gesture, "Have you got a beard?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Just Nothing Better

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Beards' _There’s Just Nothing Better Than A Beard_.  
>  Honestly, I was a little surprised that googling 'songs about facial hair' would yield such a goldmine of results. :P  
> 

Everyone stares at him for so long that it slowly starts to become uncomfortable.

Kili brushes himself off as he falls out of his barrel, and then grins jauntily at the Company. "So, what're we waiting for?"

Twelve dwarves blink at him, their eyes wide. Bifur shuffles his feet. Balin coughs. Strains of something that can charitably be called _singing-_ after all, it's coming out of the mouths of drunken elves- wafts back to them on the summer air. Two barrels drift into each other with a clink. Nobody answers him.

"Really!" Kili sniffs. "I'm just trying to make conversation here. You could talk, you know."

This perfectly valid statement is greeted by a whimper from Bofur. Gloin twitches slightly. Kili begins to look rather uncertain when there is still no response. Distantly, it crosses his mind that this may have, slightly, been a bad idea. Dwarves aren't known to die of shock, but then again, nobody expected their surly prince to fall in love with a small cute hobbit, so it's probably not wise to have relied on age-old truths his mother Dis swears by.

Speaking of their surly prince... Kili looks around for his uncle, suddenly fearful. Thorin is wildly unpredictable. His moods have only recently been temperate, and that's only when their hobbit is close at hand. But no, Bilbo is off in another burst of Tookishness, as evidenced by his barrel-less ride down the river. Which makes Thorin rather irate; he's craning his neck as he looks for Bilbo. Kili breathes a sigh of relief. As long as Thorin isn't looking his way, it counts as a victory.

Fili crashes out of his barrel. "Why're we standing- _oh_!" His voice trails off, his sentence ending on an undignified squeak as he looks at his brother. "Oh!"

Dwalin snorts under his breath. These princes are the pinnacle of the dwarven race? Yeah, right.

Fili seems incapable of speech or movement. He continues to gaze at Kili with an utterly befuddled expression on his face. "Oh!"

Kili feels rather annoyed. He huffs and crosses his arms. "Is that a good _oh_ , or a sad _oh_ , or an angry _oh_ , or is it just _oh Kili, I'm so glad you're alive and well because you are my brother and I haven't seen you in a long time_?"

Fili still looks startled. "What?"

Kili is about to give up and turn around, when their burglar once again shows his impeccable timing by crashing onto the shore. Kili snorts as Bilbo smiles softly at Thorin as the prince hurries to lift him up (well, all right, he smiles sappily, but Kili is trying to be charitable here) and grins around the Company. His grin falters and dies as he meets each dwarf's bemused expressions. And at last, that gaze lands on Kili.

The ensuing silence is, if anything, even more heavy than before.

"Kili," Bilbo breathes, even as Kili shakes his head frantically and makes the universal shushing gesture, "Have you got a _beard_?"

Kili groans and drops his head into his hands as Thorin slowly turns to fix him with the glacial Durin glare. The background music, provided courtesy of the Mirkwood elves, has slowly died out into hiccuping laughter. There is a long pause.

"Kili," Thorin growls in a voice devoid of emotion, "Look up."

Adamant, Kili shakes his head and turns away. Couldn't anyone be happy for him? Must they interrogate him so? Is it that far of a stretch of the imagination to believe that Kili son of Dis can have grown a beard?

" _Kili_ ," says Thorin again, and there is no disobeying that Durin voice. Kili gulps as he slowly looks up to meet Thorin's unreadable eyes. And to think he'd been so happy when he'd first felt the coarse hair growing beneath his fingers! He shakes as he looks up at his stern uncle.

Thorin looks him over in silence, noting the new fine growth on his chin. No dwarf or hobbit moves. And then Thorin Oakenshield, hidden King under the Mountain, turns to their hobbit.

"I know better than to expect that you lot of dwarves would have anything useful. So, Bilbo," Thorin says in a measured voice, "Do you happen to have a comb?"

Bilbo yelps in surprise, but to his credit, he recovers himself quickly and makes a show of patting himself down. "I know I had one!" he mutters distractedly as he turns his pockets upside down.

Among the spectators, Ori slowly turns beet red. Dori leans over and gives Nori a poke in the arm. Nori gives a squawk of protest and sighs in resignation as everyone's attention turns to him. Reluctantly, he reaches inside his beard and brings out a fine silver comb. 

"Not my fault!" he hisses across at Bombur in response to Bombur's wide eyes. as he hands the comb to Thorin, who accepts it with some kind of practiced calm that panics everyone.

With a regal flick of the hand, Thorin beckons Kili, who approaches his uncle in quiet astonishment. Ceremonially, Thorin holds out the comb to Kili. The youngest prince hesitantly takes it and runs over it in awe. 

"Your first comb," Thorin says, and wow, is that a catch in his voice? Bilbo pats his arm sympathetically, looking torn between amused and deeply moved. Kili tries not to sniffle. This is a huge moment,  a significant step on his way to adulthood. "When you begin courting, you may begin braiding your beard."

There is a muffled sound somewhere. Kili and Thorin turn to see Fili passed out on the ground. Bilbo clucks in distress and hurries over to the blond dwarf, propping him up and fussing over him.

Kili laughs. "He never thought this day would come, did he?"

"None of us did!" Oin grumbles under his breath, thus ensuring that every elf in the vicinity and their mother knows about his displeasure.

And then a man comes and shoots at them, so there is a slight interlude.

Afterwards, when Kili lies, resting, in Laketown, Fili (now fully recovered) pokes him. "It's that redheaded elf maiden, isn't it?"

Kili tries not to blush- not that it would show under his new beard. "So?"

Fili leans back and grins at him, and Kili knows that his brother is beyond happy for him- happy that he's got his beard at last, and that he's found his one love. "So, brother," he drawls, twirling his own blond braids while Kili squawks and tries not to hide behind the love braids in his own, "It ought to be a summer wedding, not autumn and all gloomy like Uncle Thorin's planning for his."

Kili grins back. "Oh, I doubt Bilbo will let Uncle get away with the _'secret romantic'_ argument. After all, there's just nothing better than a summer wedding, is there?"

Fili laughs. "Oh, there is. The fact that you grew a beard under Thranduil's watch? That's amazing."

Kili can't bring himself to disagree. He catches a flash of red hair across the room and smiles contentedly, rubbing at his beard. "Yeah," he says. Ain't nothing better than that.

Life is good.


End file.
